F1’s Lando Norris is a star in the making and what he has been doing this season has not been talked about enough because the focus is on the Championship battle between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, and rightfully so! In Hamilton you have the best driver of all time trying to win his record-breaking 8th championship in a row with Mercedes. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen has been absolutely dominant this season. Max has either came in 1st or 2nd place in every race he crossed the finish line. The two times he did not finish a race was in Baku when his left rear tire (tyre for the diehards) blew with 3 laps left after leading the whole race and this past weekend when Hamilton came wheel to wheel and sent Max into the wall the 1st lap British Grand Prix at Silverstone Delivers the drama!. Almost more impressive is what 21-year-old Lando Norris has been able to do in his 3rd season racing for McLaren in Formula 1.
Finishing 4th this past Sunday in front of his hometown fans at the British GP, Lando Norris now holds the record for most consecutive top-10 finishes for a F1 driver in a McLaren. This is a team that has been around since the 1966 season and has had World Champion drivers such as Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and racing legend Ayrton Senna! Breaking the previous record of 14 races in a row scoring in the top-10 held by Alonso in 2007.
LANDO NORRIS A STAR IN THE MAKING!
Lando now sits in 3rd place in the drivers championship behind Verstappen and Hamilton which is basically the drivers version of the “best of the rest” because we all knew Max and Lewis were going to finish 1st and 2nd we just didn’t know in which order. Norris finding himself in 3rd place after 10 races in a 23-race season is a bit of a shock. Lando is in a car that is inferior to the Mercedes and Red Bull cars, however he sits ahead of Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas in 4th and Red Bull’s Sergio Perez in 5th. Compared to Lando’s teammate (who’s the only other driver in a comparable car) Daniel Ricciardo who sits in 8th place behind both Mercedes, both Red Bulls, both Ferraris and his teammate.
While McLaren is historically one of the best teams in F1 history (2nd most team wins with 182) they haven’t finished in the top-3 (Currently 3rd) in the Constructors Championship since 2012. Chief Executive Officer of McLaren Racing will be the first to tell you how important Lando has been to this resurgence with McLaren and the two of them seemed to have formed this almost father-son like relationship. When Lando was unfortunately mugged after the Euro 2020 final at Wembley Stadium while getting into his McLaren supercar and got his $55k Richard Mille watch stolen, Brown was very protective of his driver and publicly criticized the Stadiums security saying “That needs to be fixed as you shouldn’t ever feel in danger at a big sporting event – you’d never see that in Formula One. He’s a bit traumatized but will be simply fine.”
Lando Norris is rapidly turning into a fan favorite in Formula One and even the other drivers are starting to take notice. Lewis Hamilton himself was heard saying over his team radio “Such a great driver, Lando” after he finally overtook Norris after a 20-lap battle in the Red Bull Ring. It’s only his 3rd season competing in F1, and he has brought McLaren back into relevance and on the podiums where they once Dominated. He signed a nice contract extension with McLarin to keep him around for a while and with the new style cars and regulations next year that should help teams like McLarin, and Ferrari catch up to the big spenders of Red Bull and Mercedes and hopefully we see Lando competing for that Drivers Championship very soon.